Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

Personally I Love:

Star Trek: Vulcans
Fuzzy Books, H. Beam Piper: Fuzzies
Honor Harrington Universe, David Webber: Sphinxian Treecats
Star Wars: Ewoks, Wookies

Love To Hate:
Star Trek: The Borg
Doctor Who: Daleks, Cybermen
Star Wars: Hutts
Aldenta Legacy, John Ringo: Posleen

Uh, nice question...

i have to say the Aliens and the Predators, the aliens are just the perfect species (from a biological and behavioral point of view)and i find the aspects of Predator civilization very interesting, like an ancient race of hunters with all kind of rituals that use both primitive and futuristic weapons.

From Star Wars i also like the Hutts, and from Doc Who the Daleks.

The Q are my favorites. I like the Klingons also. Oh, and E.T.

Love to hate the Borg.

I'm not a huge scifi reader so I can't think of any others right now.

Aliens I find fascinating:

The Cheela, from Dragon's Egg. Author Robert Forward, a physicist by trade, imagined life on the surface of a neutron star, with altered physics and biology to suit the ultra-heavy gravity, rotational velocity, and time distortion (relative to the humans trying to communicate.) Clement's Mission of Gravity Mesklinites on steroids.

The Tines from Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep form collective, multi-entity intelligence, linking by ultrahigh frequency sound over short range and periodically adding new members of the pack and shedding others, hovering around the optimal size: enough to be smart, not so many as to be confused.

G33z3r wrote: "Aliens I find fascinating:

The Cheela, from Dragon's Egg. Author Robert Forward, a physicist by trade, imagined life on the surface of a neutron star, with altered physics and biolog..."

Yes! I don't know the Tines, it is years since I read any Vinge, but I strongy agree with your other suggestions.

Niven's Puppeteers and Kzinti are good for a 'light read', but lack enough depth to be called 'fascinating'

Homo sapiens

Daleks, Cybermen, Vulcans, intelligent computers, and humans. Humans are as weird and alien as you can get.

kats are kool

in fact, I think kats are more human than humans....

Alan wrote: "Niven's Puppeteers and Kzinti are good for a 'light read', but lack enough depth to be called 'fascinating'..."

Yeah, I thought of Niven because in additioon to his "Known Space" he's also got the Moties (The Mote in God's Eye), The Integral Trees, & Fithp Footfall). All clever enough aliens, I suppose, but less than technically amazing and still sort of human-ish in outlook.

I also thought of some gas-bag critters. Niven's "Mobies" (The Integral Trees), Clarke's Medusa (A Meeting With Medusa), and Bear's Boojum (from Fast Ships, Black Sails etc.)

G33z3r wrote: "All clever enough aliens, I suppose, but less than technically amazing and still sort of human-ish in outlook...."

I think that's the problem - aliens could be interesting as alien intelligences or as animals showing possible weirdnesses of biological adaptation. Aliens are bound to have some human(ish) traits - I can't see any easy way round Maslov's hierarchy of needs - and if you go too far from 'human' they simply become incomprehensible. It is not an easy balance point to find, but Niven's intelligent aliens, the ones you mention above, just don't quite cut the mustard here (though the Moties came close).
As for fascinating animals - SF is full of them, some good some bad - too many for easy discussion! (but the Mobies were pretty good).
The solution for an author might be to accept that aliens need to have human-ish motivation and intelligence in order to be understandable to the reader, but that leaves room for all sorts of complex(and strange) societies to be built on those foundations.

How about the weird things in Varley's Titan-Wizard-Demon trilogy?

I agree that cats are an interesting alien species.

Further thoughts (following msgs 11 & 12)
Have you read Niven's Heorot stories? The Samlon/Grendel (based on an idea from Jack Cohen) is a fearsome beast - and intelligent enough to avoid the 'animal' category. The killer bees, on the other hand are clearly animal - but fascinating in their way, following the evolutionary logic present in Samlon/Grendel.

Alan wrote: "aliens could be interesting as alien intelligences or as animals showing possible weirdnesses of biological adaptation. Aliens are bound to have some human(ish) traits - I can't see any easy way round Maslov's hierarchy of needs - and if you go too far from 'human' they simply become incomprehensible...."

There are a couple of examples of aliens created specifically so an author can make a point:

In Longyear's Enemy Mine (our Novella Discussion Topic this month) the alien Drac get points for being hermaphrodites with a different culture of family inheritance. On the other hand, as far as alien uniqueness goes, they lose points for breathing the same atmosphere, liking the same temperature, eating the same foods, seeing the same light frequencies, speaking with the same audio frequencies, being bipedal. All that is necessary for Longyear to make a point.

Likewise, Le Guin's Gethenians from The Left Hand of Darkness change gender randomly, part of the author's exploration of gender role.

As you may have guessed, I'm fascinated by aliens who are physically different, tailored for a different environment, almost extremophiles such as the Cheela, Mesklinites, & Tines. And also what I called "gasbag critters" earlier, which live in the atmosphere of gas giants (Medusa, Boojum), and the various inhabitants of Niven's Smoke Ring (though none of those seem sentient.)

Speaking of oddball aliens, I read a short story last night from Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear, Mongoose (Clarkesworld). I was finally getting to it because it's set in the authors' "boojum" universe, although this involves a different unique critter, called Cheshires for their ability to fade in and out of dimensions.

Jawas. I loves those robed little people who speak...whatever they speak. I don't know, Arabic?

I love Gremlins too. Don't feed um after midnight though...

Vulcans/Klingons/Horta - Star Trek
Daleks/Weeping Angels - Dr Who
Aliens
Grendal (Beowulf) - OK not alien but 'other' to humans
Elves/Dwarves/Ents - LOTR
Jawas/Devorians - Star Wars
The treeman in Guardians of the Galaxy - whose name escapes me...

Dislike - Q and old style Romulans
Dislike anything from doctor who which is puppetlike(hate puppets)

The remoter from human-like the better as far as I am concerned. Some interesting examples are in Piers Anthony's Cluster universe. ThousandstarChaining the Lady

I am curious why nobody mentioned Solaris yet.

The Ariekei from Embassytown were pretty cool. A good example of aliens that are different enough from humans to feel... well, "alien", but enough like us that the humans in the story (at least the ambassadors) can communicate and trade with them.

G33z3r wrote: "Likewise, Le Guin's Gethenians from The Left Hand of Darkness change gender randomly, part of the author's exploration of gender role.
"

It's a fantasy series, not sci-fi, but there are characters from certain races in The Mirror Empire that change genders too (although not randomly). That was one of the more interesting elements of that book for me.

David Brin's "Uplift" series covers some excellent aliens. He particularly dives into the ones on the "fugitive planet" trilogy. The goopy pyramid stack of rings, the beings with organic wheels...fascinating stuff.

(Sorry, I don't have the books just handy for reference to proper names)

Evgeny wrote: "I am curious why nobody mentioned Solaris yet."

Possibly because no one thought of them, or possibly because, as Alan wrote earlier, "if you go too far from 'human' they simply become incomprehensible."

Inscrutability precludes fascination?

There's no aliens like the wonder collection of weirdos from the stories of H. P. Lovecraft....Cthulhu, the Old Ones, and all the rest...and Lovecraft's own special mix of horror with just the right mix of SF gives them a truely alien feel that has never been equaled IMO.

Except by cats of course.

Alan wrote: "Niven's Puppeteers and Kzinti are good for a 'light read', but lack enough depth to be called 'fascinating' "

I felt these aliens were explored well in some of the companion novels. For example, Fleet of Worlds delves into the Puppeteers, and Destiny's Forge gives depth to the Kzinti.

Ian wrote: "I felt these aliens were explored well in some of the companion novels..."

Now that is a valid point. I have only read some of these - but Fleet of Worlds is one of them, and I agree the new view gives more depth.
Whether that could or should have been done right back at the start, by Niven himself before Lerner got involved . . . open to debate!
In parallel, perhaps, I notice that Niven can write pretty damned well on his own - but is very often the lead figure in a collaboration - and the results are generally very good, particularly when Niven is apparently leading another author who is adequate, but not top of the pack.
Not sure where I am going with this. Any comment?

Alan wrote: "Whether that could or should have been done right back at the start, by Niven himself before Lerner got involved . . . open to debate!"

I think the extent to which Niven explored the other species was sufficient for the original Ringworld novel. Sure he could have gone deeper, but would that have added anything of value to that particular story at that particular time? Open to debate, but my opinion is probably not. That's not what that story was about, and too much detail would have bogged it down. Yes, you can have too much of a good thing :)

Ian wrote: "would that have added anything of value to that particular story at that particular time? ..."

No - which might be the reason Niven didn't include it at the time. But also note - Known Space stories started to appear in the late 1960s. So far as I can remember (and yes, I am that old!) questions such as the title of this discussion were very rarely asked in those days. Attitudes have changed, possibly due to the appearance of web discussion spaces like Goodreads!